“I’ve told you more than I shall ever tell anybody. The rest is mine—that and—this!”
Jerry flaunted her left hand before her. On the third finger was a tiny platinum circlet, so small that it had melted into the white of her hand at a distance, as gold could not have done. “I’ve tried to thrust it down your throat a thousand ways, but you would keep looking at my face and a thousand other unimportant things!”
Joy sank back upon the bed, her whole being a rag of dumfounderment. “Jerry!”
“Mrs. Philip Lancaster—and hurry up and put on some rouge! I don’t want to keep my husband waiting!”
“But—but why—how—where——”
“We tossed the subject back and forth at luncheon. We figured we’d been without each other long enough. After lunch we walked up to the nearest jewelry store and got this ring. I wouldn’t let him get a big one, or anything but this one. He’s poor, you know, Joy—the Lancasters are all poor. That is, he calls it poor, but now that he’s got me he’s going to work—you know he’s supposed to be a lawyer—and that combined with his income and my little Charlette block ought to keep us passing the buck along. We got married with a special license, at the Little Church Around the Corner——” Jerry spoke with the calmness of excitement at white heat—“and before going off on our honeymoon—we thought we’d take you to our wedding dinner. You see, if it hadn’t been for you I’d have still been excitement-eating—and he’d still be cynicing it around.”
The telephone rang, and Jerry darted to it. “Yes! Yes, this is Mrs. Lancaster! Yes, we’re coming, Phil!” The name was all endearments shaped in one. Jerry turned to hurry Joy with her last touches, and Joy, in a state of coma almost bordering on collapse, followed Jerry’s eager footsteps to the elevator and down into the lobby. Jerry’s husband was waiting for them, fierily handsome in evening dress, and at least ten years younger than he had seemed last night. Last night!—It seemed so far away. Joy could not even stammer much, but Jerry and Phil did not notice lack of anything, and swept her into the dining room.
“Let me see,” said Phil; “it’s the first time I’ve seen my wife in evening dress.”
“Second!” said Jerry swiftly. “I wore one at Hanley’s, two years ago!”
“Oh, but that was a costume!”